White Horse
by Laudine
Summary: Songfic, based on Taylor Swift's "White Horse," companion to "Pandora's Box." A glimpse into the end of Isabel's first marriage and the aftermath.


**Disclaimer: I do not own "X-Men," but Isabel Sayre/Sylphide and all original characters are my own creation. The song "White Horse" is by Taylor Swift.**

**White Horse**

_Say you're sorry  
That face of an angel comes out  
Just when you need it to  
As I pace back and forth all this time  
'Cause I honestly believed in you_

"Bells, believe me. I don't want a divorce. I love you…"

She clicked her cell phone shut and whipped it across the room, her eyes brimming and overflowing with tears. _I love you…_ If he had loved her, he would have been with her, and she wouldn't have caught him in _their bed_ with too-skinny, too-tall, overly-processed-blonde Ashley Danziger. She had loved him, and she had taken her marriage vows seriously even though most people had cautioned her that getting married right out of college was a stupid idea.

But she was Isabel Sayre. She was beautiful and beloved by the man of her dreams—handsome, brilliant Kyle Gowan—and she was going to marry him and live in the red brick house with the white picket fence and rose garden happily ever after. It didn't matter to Kyle that she was mutant; he loved her anyhow. Or so he had said.

He had been so contrite, bombarding her with emails and voicemail messages apologizing. Ashley means nothing to me. Come back, we can try to have other children. We can try again.

She didn't want to try again. It was over. He had left her first, and _no one_ left her first. Ever.

_Holding on,  
The days drag on  
Stupid girl  
I should have known, I should have known_

The loss of the baby had been the icing on the cake. She had been thrilled when she found out she was pregnant; she called Mémé and Jean and Ororo and Caitlin and Professor Xavier and told them of her news, and they were just as thrilled for her. Isabel wanted a normal life, a family, things she had never had growing up. This baby would have a father, its parents would stay married, and that would be that.

She had begun bleeding while at work, translating some documents for the engineers at Stark Industries. And the cramping…it was so painful…This wasn't happening, _this wasn't supposed to happen!_ It was only eight weeks…eight weeks…

Hank had been in Chicago for a lecture and left it when he got the call from Isabel's doctor at the emergency room. He met Kyle there, and he, not Kyle, stood in the room with Isabel while she expelled a tiny fetus from her body hours later. That should have been the first sign that there was something wrong: Hank McCoy, sweet, stalwart Hank McCoy who would have treated her like a princess had _he_ been her husband in some crazy alternate timeline or another lifetime—and _that_ was some crazy thought from the Xanax they had given her—remained with her, not the man whom she had married. And when Jean and Professor Xavier had come to see her that night, they had exchanged knowing glances, and then Jean and Caitlin whispering together in the hallway…It had all been so clear, she had just refused to see it.

_That I'm not a princess  
This ain't a fairytale  
I'm not the one you'll sweep off her feet  
Lead her up the stairwell  
This ain't Hollywood,  
This is a small town  
I was a dreamer before you went and let me down  
Now it's too late for you and your White Horse,  
To come around._

_Baby I was naïve,  
Got lost in your eyes  
I never really had a chance,  
My mistake, I didn't know,  
To be in love you had to fight to get the upper hand  
I had so many dreams about you and me.  
Happy endings  
Now I know_

After the D-and-C, after she came home, Jean and the Professor stayed behind while Kyle returned to work. Jean was sweet as always, sitting with her and watching soap operas during the day and hugging her as she wept. She didn't even confide her fears to Caitlin or Mémé or Tante Aurélie when they came from France to help her out.

_I think Kyle is cheating. I think it's with Ashley._

_The anorexic blonde? _Jean had smiled softly and stroked her hair. _Nonsense, Bells. You're just upset. He loves you. He really does. He's mourning this baby, too._

She let him control her too much, she reasoned. She had let him in too far, had made herself too vulnerable to him. He knew her too well, and she…she'd had too much faith in him.

_Men never stay._

_Men always leave._

The notes in her file Professor Xavier had made long ago, that she had sneaked a peek at when she was a senior in high school.

_Isabel's father left when she was six years old and has not seen her since, which gives her a sense of being abandoned. I would almost say that she has a sort of abandoned child syndrome. Abandoned child who has unrealistic expectations, who constantly needs to test anyone who comes close because they crave the unconditional love only a parent can ever really give. Abandoned child who is possessive and fears love, because even that one person abandoned them. Abandoned child who therefore underneath believes they don't deserve love anyway. And so is attracted to unattainable, unsuitable men. _

_I'm not a princess  
This ain't a fairytale  
I'm not the one you'll sweep off her feet  
Lead her up the stairwell  
This ain't Hollywood,  
This is a small town  
I was a dreamer before you went and let me down  
Now it's too late for you and your White Horse,  
To come around.  
_

She had come home from work early one day and found his car there, and she had been excited he was home, too, and she had raced up the stairs to their apartment because she thought he might be working.

She found him working on something, all right. Working the mattress mambo with Ashley Danziger in their bed.

_He'll leave you, like your father did, like Bad Daddy. He's become Bad Daddy to you._

She lost her temper. She ordered him to get the fuck out, which he and Ashley promptly did after he packed a bag for a few days. And she threw things at him as he dressed and packed—books, CDs, anything—and she hurled insults at him just as hard. After he left she went and tore up all of their wedding pictures, and she took all of his clothes and his shoes and piled them on the bed in the spare room and slammed the door so she wouldn't have to look at them.

"Leave. Leave while the leaving is good," Hank told her when she called the Institute in hysterical tears. And Warren hired a divorce lawyer for her, paid for everything.

"Come home, Isabel. Come home," Professor Xavier pleaded with her._  
_

_And there you are on your knees  
Begging for forgiveness,  
Begging for me  
Just like I always wanted,  
But I'm so sorry  
_

"Come home, Isabel, please." Kyle was begging her, on his knees in front of her after she had moved back into her condo on Lake Michigan. "It was a mistake. Ashley means nothing to me. Don't you know that people make mistakes?"

"No, Kyle!" she repeated firmly. "I want a divorce. You did this—_to me_—to our baby, even before the miscarriage! And you kept right at it! How—how…" She stopped here, the tears streaming down her face, dripping onto his hands as she broke away from his grip.

He didn't fight her anymore. He let her go, and she gladly returned to New York, to the mansion for a little while before going to Brocéliande. She begged Professor Xavier to not tell anyone, not even Kyle or Jean or Scott or Ororo or Hank or Warren about her whereabouts until she returned, just to say that she was in France with her family and that she would be back in about a year. A year and a day. And he smiled and acknowledged that they could wait.

_Cause I'm not your princess  
This ain't our fairytale  
I'm gonna find someone, someday  
Who might actually treat me well.  
This is a big world,  
That was a small town  
There in my rear view mirror,  
Disappearing now.  
And it's too late for you and your White Horse  
Now it's too late for you and your White Horse  
To catch me now._

When she returned to the mansion after the events that had unfolded at Alkali Lake, she heard that Kyle had ended up marrying Ashley Danziger. It didn't surprise her, not at all.

The second-year anniversary of the miscarriage came around in June, and it still bothered her as much as it had the first. To think that she might have had something so tiny, so precious, so reliant on her, a part of her and fuck who the father was, just so long as she could have that child that would have almost been a year-and-a-half old and smiling and laughing and beginning to talk with little kisses and little hugs and holding its arms out to her and calling for Mommy…

_Never fall for a pretty face._

_Never fall for things that look to good to be true._

_Always watch, because something could always be coming around the corner._

_Men never stay. They always leave. Like Daddy. Just like Daddy._

_Never let them get too close to your heart, because they'll break it._

_Never let them see you cry. Always put on a brave face even if you're breaking inside._

And he saw her cry. He found her crying in the den in the afternoon when the rest of the kids were outside enjoying the midsummer air and he entered, reeking of cigars and motor oil and sweat and he gave her a Kleenex and asked her if she was okay.

"I will be."

"You don't look like it," he persisted, sitting down beside her. "Your eye makeup is all gone."

"I can redo it," she sniffled defiantly.

"So why are you crying?"

She glanced at him with indigo blue eyes that were seemingly brighter through her tears and against the redness of her face. "Why do you want to know? It's nothing sordid or anything like that; you'd just say I was feeling sorry for myself, which I am, but…"

"Try me."

She was taken aback. "What?"

"I said try me. I like stories. The kids say you tell stories." He settled back in his chair and crossed his ankle on his knee—Mr. Macho in his white, grease-spattered t-shirt and faded jeans. "So tell away."

"Fairytales," she whispered witheringly.

"Then start."

And she told him—everything.

With him there were no fairytales, no promises of white picket fences and rose gardens and red brick houses and green, manicured lawns. It was all concrete, reality, what-you-see-is-what-you-get.

He was no knight in shining armor on a white horse. No Prince Charming with an enchanted kingdom and an ivory castle and unending wealth. He didn't promise rose gardens and he didn't slay dragons. It was real life, day to day, laughing and living and being important to each other and to those around them. He could only offer her himself, strong hands and a stronger heart, as she could offer him the feeling of being wanted, trusted, a home of sorts.

Still, though, there were times with him when she felt like a princess.

And she loved him for it.

_Oh whoa whoa whoa-oh  
Try and catch me now  
Oh  
It's too late  
To catch me now. _


End file.
